Texas to Virginia and back again. Strategic, tactical and operational

 



I have been on a holiday hiatus the past 2 weeks and have enjoyed every minute of it.  These past 2 weeks flew by.  We took a cross country trip to visit one set of Grandchildren for Christmas.  Any time with the Grandkiddos seems to go by quickly.  We had a wonderful time and Santa Clause was good to all of us.  I got a new Cowboy hat!!!

I thought I would write about the information that is used on a trip like this and the decisions we had to make before and during the trip.  Poor decisions during a trip like this should not be taken lightly.  A bad experience travelling can set an unhappy mood for the entire trip.  Lets face it the holidays are crazy enough.  The goal is to have a safe and pleasant trip, a nice visit and a safe return home.

With that goal in mind the first decision is the mode of transportation.  The only two viable options were drive or fly.  So what to choose?  Using logic some of the factors to consider would be cost, timing and convenience.  Flying would be the quickest and allow for a longer visit.  It would also cost more.  Driving would be cheaper but would take more time.  These parameters are well established and easily verifiable.  The cost of flying would be much more certain once flights were booked.  The cost of driving would be less certain due to fluctuating gas prices and hotel rates.  Strangely, a lot of the discussion between my wife and I centered on the convenience aspect.  If we were really honest about it the discussion was more about the lack of convenience.  Being even more honest, what method would make us less crazy and stressful!!!  In the end we decided to avoid the current uncertainty of flying and packed up the car and headed east.  Well there was a lot of stuff before packing up but you get the idea.

Of course I have to overthink this entire process and apply strategic and tactical characteristics to everything.  The decision to visit our daughter's family was strategic in nature.  It was broadly defined, we are going to visit to enjoy ourselves and connect with our daughter, son-in-law and especially our growing grandchildren.  The tactical decisions are much more involved.  Once we decided to drive we had to set out a plan for how far and what route for each day of travel.  We decided on a 3 day trip to get to Virginia.  We would generally set the destination for each night.  This would be based on timing and availability.  Since we were leaving after lunch on the first day Little Rock Ar. was the first stop.  The main factor for choosing Little Rock was that there were very few towns between it and Memphis.  So it became a choice between a 5 hour day and an 8 hour day.  The 5 hour won.  Day 2 was the long day,  Little Rock all the way to Roanoke Va..  This left a short drive for the final day to arrive in Stafford Va. around lunch time.

During the trip a number of decisions needed to be made.  These were not really tactical in nature.  These decisions have a number of constraints.  So much so that they have very few options.  I have started calling these "operational decisions".  The first night we spent in Little Rock so we needed a hotel in the Little rock area.  The area was set,  the day was fixed,  we also needed a pet friendly hotel.  So we booked a room based on the fixed constraints.  The second night was a little more fluid.  the second day's trip involved a lot of tactical decisions based on traffic and especially the weather.  A large winter storm was moving through the Tennessee area and we had to keep a close eye on things.  Once these tactical decisions had been addressed and we decided on Roanoke Va. as the stopping point we needed a hotel.  Thankfully this can be done on a smart phone.  About 3 hours from Roanoke we were able to book a pet friendly hotel.

Choices of where to eat were also operational.  Since we had our dog with us we had limited options.  It seems that one of the characteristics of operational decisions are limited options.

So that was our Strategic, tactical and operational vacation.  I had a wonderful time as well.


My new Cowboy Hat!


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